For 30 years he was the conscience of Hollywood, |
He was talking to me about bull-fighting, which was one of his passions, |
I consider his performance to be a miracle, ... I think he's one of the most talented people I've ever met. You know, he's 22 years old. ... He just transformed himself. At times it seemed eerie. It was like cloning or channeling James Dean. There were moments where I thought, 'My God, this is really bizarre.' |
I remember thinking at that moment that he was not long for this world. Anybody who could do that had such a reckless personality that sooner or later it was going to catch up with him, |
I've always felt badly that Jimmy wasn't treated with the kind of respect that I thought he deserved, ... Having known him and known how committed and determined he was as an artist and how tortured he was as a human being, and knowing the agonies of his childhood, I felt that this was a good chance to make an honorable psychological portrait of him. |
It's enough to say he was in the movie business for 16 months and here we are, talking about him 46 years later, ... That's a testimonial to the impact that he had, the power of his personality and his talent, which is indisputable. |
So he was really a tortured fellow, ... He felt very lonely during that period. But he felt that it helped him. And it did. |
The picture is not a documentary, ... It's a drama that has to be crafted. Reality is not art. You have to make choices when you're trying to make something work. And the choices we make I think are accurate. There aren't any lies in it. There are assumptions made that are critical and necessary. |